Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Frozen trade policy blunder

I'm fully aware of how incredibly nerdy it is too pick apart a small, semi-obscure detail in a movie - in this case an animated Disney movie - but I just saw Frozen and something didn't sit right with me.

The queen hurt a lot of innocent people - including her own - to get back at one minor villain.

The introduction for the Duke of Weselton showed him plotting to open up trade with the Kingdom of n Arendelle, which would somehow exploit Arendelle and make Wezelton richer - which is nonsensical, but minor.

What's much more troubling is that after the Duke is found to have tried to kill the queen, she punishes him by cutting off all trade.

Don Boudreaux compared punitive trade restrictions to fighting a war by shooting ones own citizens. What the queen did was make the citizens of Wezelton poorer, as well as make the citizens of her own kingdom poorer as well. She hurt a lot of people to get back at one guy. That's cold.